( their world isn't a kind one. kids go to war. they're burned horribly and cast out by their father. they have to witness the graveyard of their nation. they have to fight and struggle and die, sometimes, and it still isn't enough. it isn't just aang's story. he's not the first avatar throughout history to come into his legacy in a swath of misery and suffering. and he won't be the last.

it's a title with a heavy price, one he's seen korra pay for, one he knows she will keep paying for. every word, every action, every broken bone. she's the only person he knows strong enough to withstand it, but she doesn't see that in herself. she just sees someone who broke once beneath the strain.

and korra, who's so compassionate it hurts him just by proxy, who rips herself open and bleeds for people she's never met, of course she'd look at something that was just... what it was, and hurt for it. the world needed saving. katara was in a position to do that because of what she'd experienced. another girl couldn't have done it.

mako isn't like that. he's not... wired that way, or something. maybe it's because he had to draw himself inward. all of his emotional energy was spent keeping bolin safe and warm and sheltered and as close to happy as he could come, and it left no time to worry about other people. mako's cold and all his edges are hard, he can't be vulnerable in the way that korra can. in the ways she's had to be. his survival has always been about protecting what he has. bolin at first, then korra and asami too, then — at great length — republic city and all her sundry citizens.

hers has, more by nature than any innate avatar-ness there may or may not be to her, been about protecting everyone. korra puts value on his life, but he doesn't think it's any more than what she'd put on a stranger. if it came down to it, him or someone else, he doesn't think she'd pick him. he wouldn't want her to. because she understands that he's aware that sacrifice is sometimes the only play you can make.

so when korra looks at katara and sees a little girl who's carried the world's weight, she mourns for what she could have — should have had. the only thing mako sees is someone who survived. there is no 'what-if' in his mind, because if he starts wondering about other people's what-ifs, he has to examine his own. and that. he can't do it. he can't think about what it would have been like to do anything, literally anything but watch his parents burn to death. fire is a horrific way to die. it twists everything into a blackened rictus, a husk that doesn't even seem like it could be a familiar thing. and the smell...

sometimes, even the thought of it is enough to make him gag. he has to stare determinedly into the pot of curry and focus all his energy on it just to bring him back to the moment.

korra pulls away and he. misses the heat of her at his side. not quite enough to chase her, but enough that he touches her wrist as she laments the injustice of it all. she doesn't want to talk about it, and he won't. she just wants to be comforted, and if nothing else he can at least do that. wordlessly, he hands her a bowl. hand-fired. obviously clay. he's been busy.

once she takes it, he does pull her in again, just. tucking his chin against the crown of her hair. seventeen and fourteen aren't really all that different on paper either, but. he's not going to point that out. korra had even less life experience than katara did. katara, at fourteen, had been all over the world. korra had only ever been to republic city. )

My dad used to say that no one ever hurts more than they can take.

( he always meant it as a balm. something said cheerfully when mako skinned his knees. he never said it about anything serious, in serious times, but. looking back, he thinks it was his way of trying to teach him how to handle the world. his father was a gentle soul who died in an ugly way. he deserved better. )

I don't know if I believe that, but it... still helps, sometimes. To think about.